


Notes from Night Vale: Alyx-Who-Is-Already-Dead

by parsnips (trifles)



Series: Tumblr Treasures [15]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, Relationship Advice, tumblr reply
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 01:15:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8183216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trifles/pseuds/parsnips
Summary: A new segment on Welcome to Night Vale! A listener reports a missing boyfriend.
(report submitted by tumblr user champagne-chameleon; audio recording available in the tumblr link)





	

Hello, dear listeners. 

A carnival came to Desert Bluffs recently, as they are wont to do. We don't hold with such things here, since we take the meanings of words much more seriously than our less learn'ed neighbors, and besides, we have the annual Scourging of the Clowns, so it’s not like we’re missing anything.

Now normally, this wouldn’t really be news, because the city council has strongly advised us that Desert Bluffs is a fantasy that exists only because we need it to. But last night my doorbell rang, and when I opened my door there was an old-fashioned mail bag sitting on my stoop, smelling of popcorn and cotton candy and the sweat of a thousand compressed children, overtired and half-terrified by the closeness of the strangers that might, if their parents' stories are to be believed, take them by the hand one day and never bring them home again.

Naturally I opened the bag, and found inside it several letters that our fine citizens have been sending to our station in anticipation of our new segment: Notes from Night Vale! Our first note comes from Alyx, spelled with a ‘y’, which means she’s already dead:

> _I heard you’re taking notes from night_ _vale? Thank god because I have no-one in this damn town I can go to about this. Last night I was the Arby’s parking lot with my boyfriend, and I mean we just wanted to see the lights and it was romantic and around 1 in the morning, one of the lights got really bright and it like… filled the car and I shut my eyes because it was absolutely blinding and when I opened them my boyfriend was gone. The car was still locked, and his shoes were on the floorboard, but he’s gone. No-one’s heard from him all day. Thought_ _you should know. Cheers. -Alyx_

Hi, Alyx-who-is-already-dead. 

It’s never easy when lovers leave us. Even when everything seems mutual, there are always questions. Sure, it can seem like one single event was the cause of their departure – a missed dinner, a forgotten birthday – and it can seem comforting to think that if you can pinpoint the exact thing that you did wrong – if you can isolate the error, and promise yourself that with the next one, you’ll never do it again – that this time, the relationship will last.

But relationships don’t work that way. Every reaction is built on the action that came before it. You didn’t do one thing wrong – you did dozens. And it wasn’t just you, either – it was him, too. Both of you made mistake after mistake that you had no intention of pointing out to the other for correction, and so eventually it collapsed and so, as these things do, he left you. Or you left him. It depends on your point of view. 

If you need to find comfort, Alyx-who-is-already-dead, know that all relationships end. Every single one of them. At least yours ended in a blaze of light, and you were happy for a while.

Good night, sweet listeners. Good night.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://triflesandparsnips.tumblr.com/post/57333537648/triflesandparsnips-dudes-dudes-write-me-a-note), with audio and transcript.


End file.
